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Asked: 2026-05-10T17:28:25+00:00

I need a programmatic way of creating a SQL Server ODBC Data Source. I

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I need a programmatic way of creating a SQL Server ODBC Data Source. I can do this by directly accessing the Registry. It would be better if this could be done via an available (SQL Server/Windows) API to protect against changes in the registry keys or values with updated SQL Server drivers.

Accepted Answer Note: Using SQLConfigDataSource abstracts the code from the details of Registry keys etc. so this is more robust. I was hoping, however, that SQL Server would have wrapped this with a higher level function which took strongly typed attributes (rather than a delimited string) and exposed it through the driver.

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  1. SQLConfigDataSource() does the job.

    MSDN article

    Just in case here is a VB6 example:

    Const ODBC_ADD_DSN = 1 'user data source Const ODBC_ADD_SYS_DSN = 4 'system data source  Private Declare Function SQLConfigDataSource Lib 'ODBCCP32.DLL' (ByVal hwndParent As Long, ByVal fRequest As Long, ByVal lpszDriver As String, ByVal lpszAttributes As String) As Long  strDriver = 'SQL Server' strAttributes = 'DSN=Sample' & Chr$(0) _ & 'Database=Northwind' & Chr$(0) _ & 'Description= Sample Data Source' & Chr$(0) _ & 'Server=(local)' & Chr$(0) _ & 'Trusted_Connection=No' & Chr$(0)  SQLConfigDataSource(0, ODBC_ADD_SYS_DSN, strDriver, strAttributes)
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